Stephen Colbert Explains Why He Can Never Bring Back His Old Character Ever Again

Ah, the lovely entertainment industry—full of messy, confusing contracts and unclear intellectual property ownership. Not to mention characters who are characters only in terms of political affiliation and slight variations of the actor's behavior. I'm not going to try and understand what type of contract Stephen Colbert had with Comedy Central throughout his 10 years running The Colbert Report, but the network allegedly maintains intellectual property ownership over his character known as "Stephen Colbert."

Now, what exactly makes Colbert a character? It's not the name. It not the suit. Is it the one cocked eyebrow? Perhaps when Colbert 2 makes any slightly right-leaning comment he reverts to Colbert 1. I understand that they might have crossed a line by using "The Word" segment (that's like Jimmy Fallon doing Weekend Update on The Tonight Show, even though both shows are on NBC and both tape inside 30 Rock). But how does one legally distinguish Colbert 1 from Colbert 2?

Well, it was enough for Comedy Central to contact CBS after last week and tell him to stop using the character. In response, Colbert 2 officially retired Colbert 1 on Wednesday night and introduced Colbert 1's twin cousin, Stephen Colbert (let's call him Colbert 3).

Colbert 3, who looks and sounds exactly like Colbert 1 and Colbert 2, will be joining The Late Show because, from what I can gather, this slight change in back story doesn't interfere with any preexisting Comedy Central contracts.

Anyway, with Colbert 3 part of The Late Show team, Colbert 2 introduced a new segment, "The Werd," which is in every sense exactly like "The Word," but not protected by contract. In the segment he talked about picking the lesser of two evils this election. He introduced a solution, either write in Michelle Obama or:

"Change the system so on election day, you can vote against the candidate you don't want. Then, at the end of election day, we count all the against votes and the candidate with the lowest score becomes president."

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